Bart van de Kooij

Sharing is Caring

A number of startups just like Yerdle are now trying to make the sharing model work beyond high-ticket items. The challenge is attracting regular users and making it as easy as possible for individuals to transact with each other rather than with efficient, convenient and global conglomerates. The idea is that people will check a website or an application before making a new purchase.

Today Ruben and Werbach, the founders of a six-person startup want to reduce waste and change the retail economy by getting people to stop buying $$$$$ billion worth of stuff every year.

People buy too much stuff. Just because someone is going to have a birthday party, it does not mean that a global supply chain has to be kicked into gear with every item being manufactured, transported and procured. Sharing and reusing goods, whether the motive is saving money, reducing waste, or pure generosity, is far from new. Thrift stores spawned eBay and Craigslist and, now that smartphones and Facebook have entered the picture, companies like AirBnB and RelayRides are making it easy for people to rent, rather than sell, their rooms and cars to strangers.

I believe the resource sharing and rental will eventually become a larger part of the consumer economy, and startup likes Yerdle as a long-term bid to help the retail industry evolve more quickly with this trend. The more useful services a retailer can provide, just as Amazon Prime gives subscribers free shipping and movie rentals, the more loyalty it will attract. Car2go is expanding their personal car-sharing services and has a feature for people to give each other minutes to drive.

If sharing catches on, services based on ‘sharing is caring’ could be simply another must-have loyalty feature inside the retail wars.

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Comments

I like the concept too, but it demands for active participation. I inscribed but I saw that within my surroundings (which is Amsterdam) so far hardly anybody’s around. I could ofcourse start exchanging stuff with people from Canada, but I guess it then misses the point of the concept. Let’s see how this idea evolves. Peerby, on the other hand, is working quite well. After two weeks, I already reveiced three requests, which gives an interesting dynamics and new way of communicating with my fellow urban, usually anonomous, inhabitants.

Bart! Nice to have you here again. (And please, note that I will be in Shanghai for six week starting end of April). Regarding your Examples of Cool: I like the slogan : Why Shop? When You Can Share? For sure this points Direction Future. (And I also like how Joe, in the video, expresses that he is very much in need of a blender :-). But what exactly is the difference with all the other exchaning-gear wbsites? The ideological counter culture perspective? Thanks for sure. Your Example of Cool solidifies our Sane Recession insights!

It’s going to be the new way of consuming, together with rent stuff so there’s no new cycle of producing to be needed. How are we going to stimulate this mentality change or do we need to wait and react when it becomes major?